Air France New A380 Service To San Francisco, Delta New Direct Flight From Atlanta To Shanghai

As part of its 2011 summer schedule Air France has now began offering 10 weekly flights from Paris Charles De Gaulle to San Francisco. The new schedule has permitted the carrier to introduce a new daily service on the route featuring its new Airbus A380. The A380 flights began today with the Air France Flight 84 that arrived in San Francisco at 12h45 local PDT after a 10h35min flight originating in Paris. The return flight from San Francisco operating as Air France flight 83 is departs San Francisco at 4:10pm and arrives in Paris the next day at 11:35am. The remaining part of the 10 weekly services is conducted with an Airbus A340 aircraft.

Joint Transatlantic Venture

The Joint Transatlantic venture comprising Air France-KLM, Delta Airlines and Alitalia is proceeding along with its revamped summer schedule mainly by introducing 14 new weekly non-stop flights linking Florida to Europe. With the venture plans to scale back year-to-year capacity on its Europe to North America routes by at least 7% this coming fall, increasing this summer seasonal travel opportunities is critical to improving revenues.

Thus Air France will begin its new 3 times weekly flights from Paris to Orlando tomorrow using a Boeing 777-200. The Paris Charles de Gaulle-Orlando leg will be conducted as Air France flight 694 in approximately 9h20min. The return flight under Air France flight number 693 lasts about 8h25min.

As part of the same joint initiative, Delta already began daily non-stop service between Miami and London Heathrow since March 26 soon after KLM began a 3 times weekly service from Miami to Amsterdam on March 21st2011.

Delta Airlines new China services

Yesterday, Delta Airlines re-instated its Shanghai flight from Atlanta to Shanghai Pudong which had been interrupted at the height of the 2008 financial crisis. Delta flight 229 leaves Atlanta at 9:55 am on Sunday and Tuesday arriving the following day after a 15hr30min flight. The return flight designated Delta 228 operates on Monday and Wednesday departing Shanghai at 3:45pm and arriving in Atlanta at 6:45pm the same day after a 14h30min flight. The airline will use a Boeing 777-200LR configured with the Business travelers-friendly BusinessElite flat bed seat. This Business class seat was introduced into the Delta fleet in 2008 and uses a staggered positioning in the aircraft forward cabin. Designed by Contour Premium Aircraft Seating, the seat offers a private/partitioned passenger quarter experience as well as sleeping comfort after transforming into a fully flat 23.5in (60 cm) wide and 76in (193 cm) long bed. The carrier operates 8 older retrofitted extended range Boeing 77-200ER along with 10 newer ultra long range Boeing 777-200LR including the Boeing 777-232(LR) registration number N705DN which conducted yesterday’s re-instatement flight to Shanghai. The 45 BusinessElite seats available on these aircraft are complemented by 233 new 18.2in (46cm)-wide Economy Comfort seats offering a pitch of 32in (81cm).

On the Chinese market delta has been able to secure a codeshare agreement with China Eastern airline made effective on June 1st. The agreement would offer 20 domestic China connections in Shanghai to passengers arriving from the US. Delta is attempting to capitalize on growth opportunities to China and increase its market share by adding new flights. A new non-stop flight from Detroit to Beijing is set to begin July 1st. The airline indicates that it will operate 47 weekly flight from China this summer, noticeably from Beijing to Seattle, Hong Kong to Detroit and also Shanghai to Detroit. However these flights are conducting intermediate stop in Tokyo-Narita International airport.